Glamorous nocturnal creatures—David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, in hard-edged black tailoring and graphic shades—move through a club looking for sex partners to the pulsing backdrop of British band Bauhaus performing their goth anthem “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” In the three or so minutes it takes to watch the opening titles of the 1983 movie The Hunger, you’ll understand everything you need to know about this year’s fall fashion.
It’s a scene of dark, moody eroticism, not unlike what we’re seeing on storefront windows: sculpted noir jackets and pants with an emphasis on shoulders, waists, and hips, and molded leather as black as midnight during Scandinavian winters. It’s there at Saint Laurent, Alaïa, Tom Ford, Catherine Holstein’s Khaite, Willy Chavarria, Demna’s all-new Gucci, and, perhaps most persuasively—and deliciously perversely—in Antonin Tron’s compelling debut for Balmain. “The opening sequence is unmatched,” Tron tells me. “Deneuve and Bowie are moving around like predators, and that scene is a rare moment where it’s as much about the fashion as what’s going on—the way Deneuve is dressed.... It’s a club where I’d like to hang out.”